red ribbons
by emazings
Summary: His favorite headband is red and falls on his fingers like silk. Chuck Bass is seven, and Blair Waldorf is his new obsession. / or snapshots of chuck and blair throughout the years.


**A/N: **my first published chuck and blair fic. because they've consumed me and there's nothing i can do about it.

for suman (willherondales on tumblr) and naiche lizzette (crooked queen on tumblr)

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His favorite headband is red and falls on his fingers like silk. Chuck Bass is seven, and Blair Waldorf is his new obsession.

(she never gets old, she's blair waldorf)

His life is an endless cycle of new toys, missed phone calls from his father, and Blair Waldorf. She's perfect, her eyes are the darkest thing he's ever seen, and he swears, her wicked smirk is darker.

But she is Nate's, and Nate is Serena's, and Serena is Blair's, and Chuck is left with nobody.

It doesn't matter though, because soon, Nate is his too, and Blair always remembers to bring him a cupcake when her Dorota makes one because she knows red velvet is his favorite.

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It's his fourteenth birthday and the restaurant at the Palace is already filled. Drinks are spiked left and right, and the flashing lights call out like pretty girls pulling him in by the tie.

Serena is grinding on some Upper West Side boy, and Nate is off on the balcony, still coughing at the taste of weed, and Blair is sitting primly on the ottoman. She looks utterly bored, legs crossed, pale and smooth, like the white ribbon wrapped around her ponytail.

She's winding another ribbon around her hand, a nervous habit she just recently discovered, somewhere in between staring at Nate staring at Serena and trying to run away to throw up her lunch. It is the least destructive of her recent ticks, and Chuck can't help but be mesmerized, cream and white swirling together quickly, until it becomes a blur to his tipsy mind.

He walk over to her with practiced confidence, something they are both too good at, and her eyes are tired when they find his.

"Not having fun, Waldorf?"

It takes her a minute to reply, first she sighs, then takes in a breath like she's putting in too much effort to talk to him.

"It's a party full of prostitutes and drunk high schoolers, Bass. What do you think?"

"You could at least pretend, you know, it is my birthday." Blair doesn't respond and the loud electronic beat pounds, louder than ever, and the singer's words bounce in his ears.

_We're all wearing masks, I just want to rip yours off._

"Happy birthday, Chuck," she says, getting up to leave, and kissing a careful kiss on his cheek that lingers just a bit too long. He watches with smoldering eyes as she leaves, grabbing her coat and Serena on the way out. The blonde beauty is swaying on her feet, and Blair is carrying her weight. Always carrying somebody's weight.

He opens her present last, and something in his chest contracts when he sees it. A pair of cufflinks, gleaming gold in the dim half-light, a cursive C and B engraved onto the front.

He knows that he is supposed to read them as Chuck Bass, but after reading her card, all he can think is _Chuck and Blair, Blair and Chuck._

_Bass- _

_Thanks for being my partner in crime. Blair and Chuck, taking over the city, huh?_

_Happy Birthday._

_-B_

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When she is fifteen, her father is gone, her best friend is gone, and her boyfriend is basically gone. Chuck Bass has seen a broken Blair Waldorf before, but not one so devastatingly alone.

Her hair is losing its luster, and her eyes are losing their gleam, and her arms are getting thinner and thinner.

Distantly, or maybe more closely than that, Chuck realizes that it's his job to watch over her now. Her mother is barely in New York anymore, and Dorota can only do so much.

So he's in her elevator again, and the gilded gold on the walls are reminding him of her, because in a sick sort of way, everything reminds him of Blair Waldorf.

He finds her lying in bed, covers pulled over her lap, a box of macarons beside her. _Roman Holiday _is playing, and Blair is staring at the screen, entranced, mind half in the movie. Her head doesn't snap to stare at him like usual, and Chuck is startled, again, at how not-Blair-Waldorf Blair Waldorf is acting.

He slides into the left side of the bed, and she barely looks over at him, just offers him a macaron, soft pink and crumbling in her hands. Crumbling, but still beautiful. He forgets if he's thinking about the cookie or her.

Her head ends up on his shoulder, and his arm is draped around her by the middle of the film. Quietly, Blair remembers Sunday mornings with Serena, and she sighs heavily, leaning into the smell of cigarettes and cologne and scotch from the boy next to her.

She thanks all the gods she knows for Chuck Bass. He thanks the only deity he knows for this moment, and the name Waldorf echoes through his mind like an often-repeated prayer.

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Twenty-seven, in love, married, and a red ribbon is wrapped around his fingers. It's frayed, worn out by his fingers running over it, again and again.

His wife is lying in their bed, arm sprawled across his pillow, and her hair is mussed, but beautifully so.

She doesn't wear headbands anymore, but red has always been his favorite.


End file.
